Why Tanks Should Care About Diplomacy
At the Fanguard closing dinner I was fortunate enough to sit with Steve Williams (Aruspex), one of the developers working on the diplomacy sphere in Vanguard.
I had a passing interest in diplomacy because it is something new and unique… but I have to admit it has been simply a case of a little curiosity since I tend to be a “powergamer” and planned to concentrate on adventuring. I asked some pretty uninformed questions and Steve patiently answered them. And then I inadvertently asked a question which has changed my entire perspective on the diplomacy sphere! I asked him if a character who wanted to specialize in diplomacy could spend his entire career in cities, only venturing into the “wild” to travel between population centers.
Steve’s response was that it would probably be possible, but that character would miss so much content that he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to restrict themselves like that. He then started explaining how they want to make the different spheres interact with each other and make each sphere interesting to people who normally might not find them so attractive at first glance. (I felt like he was talking directly about me at this point!) We all heard Jeff and Brad’s example of how a diplomat might be able to gain access to the throne room in a particular place, and therefore access to the king who might then give special quests. But Steve’s example was much more direct and really got me interested. It was a very simple concept. Here’s what he said…
[ details such as names and places are made up in this portion. I wasn’t taking notes at dinner and I’m old and don’t have the memory I once did. ]
Imagine that you’re adventuring in a major dungeon and you kill a mob. When you loot the body you find a scrap of paper with information about Akair’s Breastplate. Reading through the information you find out that Akair was a legendary hero from Qalia. You also find out enough information to set you on the trail to find out about this amazing piece of armor. Bam! You had never given diplomacy a second thought… and now you realize that you’re going to need it to track down this piece of armor.
I’m going to speculate on how this might progress from that point. You might find yourself in a library in Qalia trying to persuade the librarian to let you look at their rare books that could yield a clue. After you gain access to the books, you might find the location of Akair’s burial chamber. Once you have this information, it could set a flag on your character like Jeff and Brad spoke about during the Forum at Fanguard.
You then gather a party of friends and travel to the location of the burial chamber. For other adventurers who stumble across the place, it is simply a small creepy dungeon filled with undead. But when a flagged character enters the final room, the ghost of Akair spawns and attacks. When he is defeated, he drops the breastplate.
The possibility of engaging quests that are tied to both adventuring and diplomacy has changed my viewpoint from “It’s cool, but not really for me” to “Man, I’ve gotta learn more about diplomacy!”
The links between the spheres can get even more entangled. Instead of attacking, the ghost could want to talk. Now it would be up to you to use your diplomacy skills to convince him to tell you how to make a copy of his breastplate. After a successful negotiation you would learn the recipe and have to craft the breastplate.
But what if you don’t have the diplomatic or crafting skills required? We spoke about how players would go to great lengths to learn the required skills if they perceived that the reward was worth it (anyone remember the shawl quests in EQ?). We also spoke about an interesting alternative… the possibility of hiring a diplomat to work for you!
This hasn’t been decided on yet, but the possibilities are exciting. Steve gave an example of a guard at a door. If you engage in diplomacy and “win” then the guard might wander off and allow you to sneak past. At this point, there are three possibilities. First, is that the guard is only distracted enough to allow the diplomat who won the negotiation to pass through the door. Another option is that the guard wanders off long enough for the entire party to sneak past. Finally, the guard could just wander off completely for a period of time during which anyone could go through the doorway. The second and third options certainly provide the gameplay mechanics necessary to allow players to hire diplomats to perform certain negotiations on their behalf.
But what about our example with a character flag being set which will cause a special mob to spawn when the flagged player enters a certain area? If the developers decide to allow diplomats to perform actions on behalf of another character, then the diplomat could be speaking for you when he talks to the NPC… and when the negotiation yields a flag, you will receive it instead of the diplomat. This possibility has me pretty excited as an adventurer, and I am sure that diplomats would love it, as it would give them a way to turn diplomacy into a valuable service oriented profession in the player economy. (I want to caution you that this is speculation based on Steve saying that they have considered allowing people to “hire” diplomats to work on their behalf, and my own interpretation of how that might work in the game.)
All in all, it was a very engaging and enjoyable dinner. I felt bad for Steve, as I don’t think he got to eat even half of his dinner since everyone at the table was throwing questions at him… but he was a good sport about it and seemed happy to talk about it. He mentioned that the developers would love to talk more about diplomacy but simply cannot since the system is still being worked on. I wish they could talk about it more too… I had no idea that I was going to be a diplomacy nut… but after spending some time talking with Steve, I’m converted! I’ll have to add a rolodex to my adventuring pack, right next to my helmet and sharpening stones…
TheDrunkenDwarf
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